


Horniness begets horniness

by Prim_the_Amazing



Series: The Touching Thing [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: AI fuckery, M/M, Mind Meld, Mutual Masturbation, Touch-Starved, also theres background grimmons and kimbalina, and both of them as poly, and past relationships such as chex and sucker are mentioned, and tucker as lusting after everyone, but this fic is chucker centric, i hc church as having a crush on everyone, kinda subby church but this aint really a bdsm fic, so yea theres some casual lusting after other people here, sort of i mean i mostly focus on the body and some emotional spillover, that tag has never been more applicable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 20:45:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13819107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: “How the hell do you do foreplay with yourself?” he asks, voice laden with skeptical derision.A pause, and then, in a tone of voice like this is just now occurring to him: “I could… show you?”Church, missing his ability roll his eyes, waits for the bowchickabowwow.It doesn’t come.-Tucker masturbates while Church is in his implants.





	Horniness begets horniness

Can AI get touch starved?

Nothing Church has got in his databanks have anything to say about the subject, because no one really seems to be asking the question. Which might be all the answer he needs, really.

So, ipso facto, Church isn’t touch starved. Obviously.

* * *

 

“What,” Carolina says more than asks, a statement of her disbelief over how fucking awful what Grey just said is on multiple levels.

Church is in complete agreement with his sister.

“Are you coming down with tinnitus from all of those gunshots, Agent Carolina?” Grey politely inquires. “I said, I’m prescribing the two of you a break from each other.”

“What, like we’re a married couple on the edge of divorce?” Church snaps, turning his holo projection on just so he can give Grey a particularly unimpressed tilt of his helmet.

“Like you’ve been curling around each other and shutting everyone else out like over dependent siblings!” she cheerfully corrects him with a head tilt of her own that’s overwhelmingly condescending.

“We have not!” Church splutters.

“We’ve just been _working,”_ Carolina defends them. “Hargrove may be gone, but there are still space--”

“Yes, but they’re scattered, weak, unorganized, and mostly just focusing on trying to find a way off planet before the UNSC arrives. The world won’t end if the two of you take a little vacation! Not _this_ time anyways. And I know that the only way to make you do that is to separate you; you instinctively and naturally enable each other’s self harming workaholic tendencies--”

  
“We do not!” Church definitely doesn’t shriek.

“We don’t have _tendencies--”_ Carolina hisses like it’s a dirty word.

“Relax, Church, Carolina! It’s not like I’m not going to allow the two of you not to interact at all! I just want the two of you to interact with _other_ people some, and to not go on any missions. So, to manage that: Church, you’re not allowed to implant in Carolina’s armor or head for the next week.”

“You can’t do this!” Church says. She _can’t._ What, she just has to snap her fingers and they have to do everything she says? She’s not _that_ scary. (Mostly because he’s got Agent motherfucking Carolina in his corner, but still.)

“I think you’ll find that I can,” she says, and then brandishes her datapad to show them an email from General Kimball herself signing off on the order.

Church sees Carolina tense up at the sight of the signature, and knows that he’s already lost the fight.

It’s so fucking annoying how whipped some people get when it comes to their girlfriends.

* * *

 

Church doesn’t miss Caboose’s hugs.

No matter how many times he told him, he always forgot to be gentle. Or, he _was_ gentle, but it was by his standards of gentle, and Caboose is a freak of nature that could crush a brick in his hand if he wanted to. They were always too hard, too sudden, too long, and too fucking sincere for him to be able to ever actually enjoy them in any way.

Now instead, he’ll cup his hands around his holo form like he’s shielding a flame from the wind, not even touching because he can’t, just hovering as close as he can. Finally gentle when it doesn’t even matter any longer, something in that unfathomable fucked up head of his saying _fragile_ when he sees _small._

Church will lean as close as he can to those large hands without touching them, because that’ll break the illusion of being embraced. He’ll close his eyes (turn off his visual feed), and think of creaking ribs and the breath being squeezed out of his lungs and a warm body encircling him, clinging to him.

Church doesn’t miss Caboose’s hugs. He doesn’t.

* * *

 

So, Church can’t hang out in Carolina’s skull any longer. Wash is right out for obvious reasons. Caboose’s head is too chaotic for him to even consider staying there for a whole week. The Reds all act like if they stay around him for too long his ‘drama’ will rub off on them and they’ll drop dead or they’ll find out they have a long lost twin brother who’s out to murder them and take their place and they’ll end up getting a fiance who’s pregnant and then a mistress who’s pregnant and--

It was at this point that Church told them to shut the fuck up, he isn’t dramatic, and then he turned off his holo in a huff to definitely-not-sulk.

“What about Tucker?” Carolina asks.

“UGH,” Church answers.

“Church, if I haven’t dumped you off with someone else by this afternoon Kimball’s going to get… upset?”

“She probably didn’t even read that email. You know Kimball just signs whatever Grey shoves at her?”

“I can’t take that kind of risk, Church.”

 _“Ugh,”_ Church says, and Carolina changes direction towards the gym, where Tucker usually is at this time of day.

They find him sweaty and doing pull ups, shirtless for some reason. Church remembers when he couldn’t so much as bitch Tucker into fetching Caboose for him, back in Blood Gulch. What the hell. He’s doing this to spite him, isn’t he.

“Tucker!” Carolina calls out.

“Hey, Carolina!” Tucker replies, looking down at them but not pausing his workout, breathing a little heavily but not by much. He waggles his eyebrows. “Checking out the goods?”

“More like getting the goods shoved in our faces,” Church pops up to grumble, despite having resolved to pointedly stay out of the conversation only moments ago.

“More like noticing how you aren’t pulling yourself up properly,” Carolina ribs along with him, a small smile in her voice. Church’s shitty mood lifts just a little at that; it’s rare for her to goof off in a way that doesn’t feel too forced like that.

“Freelancers!” Tucker exclaims, eyes rolling, and he let’s go to land onto his feet. “Can’t tie your damned shoes around them without getting critiqued on your technique. What’s up?”

“Can you play host to Church for a while?” she asks.

“Sure thing. You and Kimball got a hot date tonight?” He shoots Carolina a lecherous, knowing grin at that, and Church almost gets phantom pains of rolling his eyes at him.

“I’m actually thinking less of you two sticking together for an afternoon and more, uh, a week,” she awkwardly corrects him.

Tucker’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “Whoa! A _week long_ sex marathon? That’s intense, dude, but I guess I should’ve expected intense from you-- ow!”

“Stop being stupid,” Carolina says, casually shaking out her hand. “Yes or no?”

“Yeah, yeah, alright,” he says casually, _clearly_ not thinking it over.

And then she gives Church a quick warning before she reaches back to her neck and plugs him out and, presumably, hands him over to Tucker.

* * *

 

Being carried around piggyback style was _fun._ Physical labor sucks, and walking something’s no one can escape-- except for him, because he was leader of Blue Team and if he told his teammates to carry him, after a certain amount of bitching, they would. Hooking his arms around someone’s neck was fun. Steering them around was fun. Being taller was fun. It was just pure and simple _fun._

Caboose was more eager and way taller, but Church had to always wear his helmet when they did it because Caboose always forgot to duck when they passed through a doorway, and steering him was hard because it took an extra few seconds for anything to sink through his thick skull. So, a lot of crashes with Caboose.

With Tucker, there was a whole lot of whining and complaining, but he reluctantly agreed to taking turns with Caboose on carrying him (Caboose himself was devastated when this rule was put in effect, but as usual, he was also quickly and easily distracted from his devastation). He huffed and puffed and swore at him the entire time, but honestly? That just made it more fun for him. Church is an asshole, and he embraces it.

He wonders now if liking piggyback rides had anything to do with being an AI, if being carried around by someone just felt right.

No. He doesn’t think that’s it. After all, riding around in someone else’s head doesn’t make him feel childishly giddy. It just is.

* * *

 

When Church wakes up, he’s inside Tucker’s head. His implants.

Well, this is a first. He’s only ever been in Tucker’s armor before. Only ever been in Caboose and Carolina’s heads before. (He can’t remember Wash.)

He’s starting to think that every mind must be different. _Radically_ different.

Caboose’s brain is chaotic and loud, distractible, spinning out into a million different tangents at once that all get tangled together, indecipherable, and once he goes deeper he gets to see the world the way he does, the people he knows the way he does, all a little warped, simplified, not quite right. Tinged with his opinions and feelings all the way through.

Carolina’s brain is the same way, really, once you get past the neat and forceful surface, the permeating thought of _I have to be good enough._ In the way she sees people, at least. They’re all obviously biased, not the way they really are. The way people are around her, when they’re talking with her, that’s the way they really are to her. Simmons is always nervous and tongue tied, Grif is always ready with a crooked smile and a blunt, Sarge with a grandfatherly pat on the shoulder and a terrible but fun sounding plan of attack.

Church doesn’t like spending time around their idea of him in either of their brains. He’s always too… nice. Supportive. Friendly. It’s ridiculous how far off base they are. It makes him feel a weird mix of jealous and embarrassingly touched. And also weirded out. That too.

The first thing he sees when he wakes up deep inside Tucker’s mindscape is Wash, naked. And Carolina. Also naked.

He gets the _fuck_ out of there.

“WHAT THE FUCK,” he screeches as loud as he can in Tucker’s brain.

“AGH,” Tucker shouts, and falls to his bedroom floor. “Don’t _do_ that!”

“Well, don’t think about Wash and my fucking sister _doing it!”_

“I can’t help it, I saw both of them shirtless at the gym today! They’re so ripped, Church! They belong together!”

“Oh my god, shut up!”

So, the week is off to a good start. After that, Church vows to stay away from the deep, visual parts of Tucker’s brain forever. Surface thoughts and emotions only.

The rest of the day, they sink back into the dynamic they’d had back in Blood Gulch, back when it was just them, the distant Reds, and the idiot rookie. Nothing to entertain themselves with but mindlessly bickering with each other. It’s oddly nostalgic. He hasn’t spent enough time with Tucker lately.

He reluctantly powers down when Tucker goes to sleep, far earlier than Carolina. His host can’t fall asleep so long as he’s awake, nevermind the mountain of work just waiting for him... He’ll get to it in the morning.

Except when he wakes up Tucker has his hand on his dick.

 _“Tucker!”_ he screeches, and Tucker yelps and lets go of himself like he’s been scalded.

“Sorry-- no, wait, this is my dick and my room--”

_“But I’m in your head.”_

“--right, right! But, ugh, Church! I woke up with morning wood! What else was I supposed to do?”

“Not jack off!”

“... For a whole week!?”

“Yes!”

“CHURCH, I’LL DIE.”

They argue about that for a while. Church eventually makes the concession to power down for twenty minutes once a day, losing even more time for work. Tucker sulks because he only gets twenty minutes to jack off every day for a week. Church makes sure to check up online how much the average human male masturbates before he insults him.

This isn’t a problem with Carolina. She just pawns him off on Caboose or someone else for an evening about once a week, goes to visit Kimball, and then comes back a little less tense. It might be more if they weren’t both workaholics, but they are, so that’s that.

He tries not to think about Tucker’s hand sliding on his own skin, how that might feel if he sank far enough into him to feel everything he feels. He’s not going to do that, he’s staying out of Tucker’s brain as much as he can; that thing’s permanently stuck in the gutter.

Tucker gets up, jogs, showers, changes, and eats. Church can project himself because he’s wearing his armor, and so he gets to say hello to Caboose and the others. Caboose is ecstatic, and Grif implies that Carolina’s kicked him to the doghouse. Church clarifies that _Grey_ kicked him to the doghouse. Tucker resents being compared to a doghouse.

It occurs to him that it’s been too long since he’s eaten breakfast with the guys. He doesn’t eat, and Carolina’s schedule is several hours further along than the Reds and Blues, and he just hadn’t really noticed. He’ll have to ask if Carolina can eat with them more often. Or maybe he can just jump over to one of the Sim Trooper’s armor more often.

Grey _might_ be onto something here, but he’ll be damned if he admits that to her.

“You’re up late,” Grif says to someone behind Tucker, who turns his head so they can both see Simmons approaching.

“You tripped over the outlet to my alarm clock and didn’t put it back in again,” he grumbles, and sits down with his tray next to Grif.

“Oops,” Grif says, completely unapologetic, and then looks at him out of the side of his eye with a very slight smile, unnoticed by Simmons.

 _He did that on purpose,_ Tucker realizes so loudly that Church hears the thought loud and clear.

“I told you he was crafty,” he agrees privately inside of Tucker’s head where no one else can hear him. “He’s probably trying to get him to sleep more or something.”

_That’s so cute/sweet/romantic_

And then there’s an image in Tucker’s brain, for such a brief moment that Church barely has the time to take in the details before it goes away: Grif and Simmons, clothes hanging off of them, skin and metal revealed, pressed close up against each other, kissing and stroking and touching with their eyes dark and closed with dim lighting and every inch of their bodies radiating intimacy and love.

It’s so quick and out of nowhere, and Tucker doesn’t react in any way out of the norm once it’s over, that he’s left quiet and flabbergasted, wondering if that really just happened. That lasts until Tucker leaves to go on patrol, at which point Church says, “Did you just fantasize about Grif and Simmons?”

Because really, _Grif and Simmons?_ Tucker’s shown zero interest in either of them so far that Church has noticed, and he’d describe them as ‘homely’ if he was being _generous._

“What, no!” Tucker denies.

Church shoves the image that he’d seen moments ago back to the forefront of his brain in response.

“Well, that’s not-- come on! That’s not a _fantasy,_ it’s just… they’re cute! Together. Y’know?”

“I do not know,” he says. Simmons, Grif, _cute?_ Hell no. Those guys were assholes.

“It’s like… okay, so, here’s how it is: they’re in love. _Obviously,_ in love. They love each other so much! I can’t stress this enough. And it’s like, okay, you know when you’re fucking a chick and she keeps pulling back moments before you come, over and over again? And you’re just so desperate for it to happen already? It’s like that, except with Grif and Simmons and how they should just kiss and get together already.”

There’s so much of that that he just isn’t going to touch.

“So you think about them having sex.”

“Well that was more the _lead up_ to sex, but that’s besides the point. It wasn’t about, you know--” and then he devolves to just meaningless spluttering as he tries to defend himself.

They both decide to just let it be when he can’t find the words to explain it.

* * *

 

Every memory Church has of Tex touching him, skin to skin, is fake. He knows that. He _knows_ that.

He still has them.

She had calloused hands, from guns and knives and punching, and she kept her nails practical short. He liked it when she ran her hands through his hair, sometimes scratching, sometimes _tugging._ He liked it when she dug her blunt nails into his back, when she gripped his hips so hard they bruised, when she laughed or snarled into their kisses.

None of it was true, and he’d resolved to stop thinking about it when he decided to get over Tex, to move on. Lately, the memories have started coming back though, but he doesn’t think it’s got anything to do with Tex, not really.

He thinks about Tex wrestling him into bed, Tucker piggybacking him back to base, and Caboose hugging him too tightly.

It shouldn’t be possible to miss something you never really had.

* * *

 

Church needs to shut down every now and again, for his own health. He doesn’t have to do it as often as humans need to sleep. In fact, he could even go indefinitely without shutting down for the rest of his life, it’d just be a very short rest of his life. His human host can’t sleep as long as he isn’t shut off though, so he’s got the choice between doing it every night and resentfully being in tip top shape, or just transfering over to a nonhuman server and hanging out there and being super productive the entire night until the meatbags wake up already.

Carolina used to let him get away with the latter, pulled a lot of all nighters herself, in fact. And then he nearly glitched out into non existence during the Staff of Charon battle and she threatened to bribe Grey into doing _terrible_ things to his software if he didn’t start taking better care of himself (being unable to do so herself because she’s so technologically inept she probably doesn’t know how to open Google on her own, thank god she’s got him on her side).

So, he shuts off every night now. Grudgingly. Out of fear of whatever horrors Carolina and Grey could come up with together. And also maybe because he promised her he would. Whatever.

So, anyways, he shuts off still plugged into Tucker’s neck port because if he’s just shutting off anyways, why get him to put him somewhere else?

He forgot to account for the fact that he’d slip into his dreams while they were both unconscious, because it’s never been an issue with Carolina before. She either sleeps dreamlessly, or she has nightmares and he helps her out with them. No one can understand your bad dreams quite as well as someone who literally experienced them alongside you, after all.

He’s never been there for her having dreams like _this,_ though.

Donut’s hovering over him, hands braced to either side of his head, blond hair that looks so tantalizingly soft falling around their faces like a silky curtain, conveniently blocking out the world, the _unnecessary_ parts, everything but them and his beautiful smile. He inhales and he smells sand and Donut’s sweet perfume.

“Like this,” he says, and leans down and kisses him. His lips are soft and taste like strawberry. He’s always so neat and pretty and made up, even here, even when they’re in trouble or stranded or in the middle of another huge fucking disaster. He’s resourceful. He’s a wonderful kisser.

He moans into it, softening, relaxing, surrendering, and lets Donut show him.

And Tucker thinks, _fuck yes._

And Church thinks, _what the fuck!?_

And that’s enough to get _Church_ to at least realize that this is a dream, for him to withdraw a little from the situation and take mental stock. Donut’s never kissed him. Donut’s never--

“Hang the fuck on,” he says. “Is this a memory or just fully made up? I honestly can’t tell.”

“Oh, Church is here now,” dream Donut casually remarks.

Tucker _doesn’t_ realize that this is a dream yet. He smiles dopily up at Church from between the golden waves of Donut’s hair and says, “And he’s in his hot human bod, too! Somehow. It’s a Christmas miracle. Get in here, Church.”

Church looks down at the hot human bod he thought that he’d never see again and is indeed inhabiting in this dream, and then at his two scarred, horny, fucking _gorgeous_ friends that he may or may not have crushes on pressed up against each other on the floor, looking at him like he’s a tall drink of water.

“I don’t celebrate Christmas,” is what comes out of his stupid fucking mouth for some reason. As if that’s the important part of _anything_ Tucker just said.

“Some joke about jingle bells and balls,” Tucker says.

“You’re so funny, Tucker!” dream Donut chirps, and yeah, that’s it, he can’t take this any longer.

“YOU’RE DREAMING,” Church says.

“Yeah, you know what? I _am_ dreamy.”

Well, no one could say he hadn’t at least given the gentle approach a try.

Church zaps Tucker, overloading the neck ports with an algorithm he’s got ready and handy for just such an occasion. Well maybe not just exactly an occasion like this, but the point is that it gets whoever’s he’s inhabiting to wake up with a yelp, no damage done even if the skin around the port will tingle a little painfully for a few more minutes.

“What!?” Tucker screeches, looking with frantic confusion around his dark room as he gets his limbs tangled in his blankets.

Okay, so maybe this living in Tucker’s head thing is going really spectacularly badly, after all. _Just like he’d predicted._

“You just asked me to have a threesome with you and Donut,” he says.

 _“I’m no less confused,”_ Tucker says.

“In your sex dream. Which I just woke you up from.”

There’s a long pause. And then, “You passed a threesome with me and Donut up!? Dude! I’m kind of insulted!”

“That is _not_ how you should react.”

“Well, it’s how I’m reacting! What the fuck, dude! Ugh, I can’t believe I-- you-- ughhhhhh.” He slumps back into his bed, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. “You’re an even worse head roommate than an actual roommate.”

“You were the bad roommate, and you’re the bad head roommate now as well.”

“You’re the one interrupting my sexy dreams! That’s, like, possibly the worst thing you could do to me.”

Church could literally fry Tucker’s brain with a thought right now if he wanted to. Sure, he’d die along with him, but still. It's an option. He has a feeling pulling the ‘I could kill you’ card probably wouldn’t win him the argument, though. “Well, you’re the one subjecting me to your sexy dreams! Get your mind out of the fucking gutter already, it’s like you’re horny twenty four seven. I thought you were exaggerating all of this time and just had, like, a terrible sense of humor or something.”

“My sense of humor is fantastic--”

“--yes, people just groan or shout at you whenever you crack a joke to show their appreciation--”

“--and I’m not usually _this_ horny, actually! This is a little above average, even for me.”

“Well then what the fuck is your problem?”

“You?” Tucker says like it’s obvious.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re only letting me jerk off, like--”

“Oh, not this again! That’s a perfectly fine amount of time to masturbate, Tucker!”

“It’s three times less than I usually have!”

_“You spend an hour each day masturbating!?”_

“I like taking my time,” he says defensively. “Foreplays the most important part! Donut taught me that.”

Holy shit, so it _had_ been a memory. Don’t dwell on it, don’t blow a circuit, don’t, don’t--

“How the hell do you do foreplay with _yourself?”_ he asks, voice laden with skeptical derision.

A pause, and then, in a tone of voice like this is just now occurring to him: “I could… show you?”

Church, missing his ability roll his eyes, waits for the bowchickabowwow.

It doesn’t come.

“Wait,” he says. “Seriously?”

“On myself,” Tucker clarifies, as if there’s any other body besides his own here to demonstrate with. That’s how Church realizes that Tucker’s nervous, even though he’s huddling as far away from his feelings and thoughts as he can in his head. “You can see everything I see, right?” A dry swallow. “Feel everything I feel.”

“No,” Church says, and he can’t see Tucker’s expression right now, but the sudden spike of emotion almost reaches him, it’s so sharp and sudden and _intense._ “I can’t feel everything you feel,” he rushes to clarify. “I’d have to-- sink deep into you-- do not! Into your _mind,_ okay? To the point where _you’d_ feel _me_ too. We’d kind of… meld. You’d definitely know if we were feeling the same things.”

“Dude,” he says. “That sounds kinda hot.”

“No, it doesn’t!” His voice rises by a few octaves. “It’s fucking weird AI shit, you dumbass.”

“Hey, you don’t get to tell me what my kinks are.”

“How could this possibly be anyone’s kink, Tucker. I’m pretty sure most of the people who know this is even possible are dead.”

“You’d be surprised, dude. You don’t spend enough time on the internet.”

“I don’t want to get malware. And I’m not going to mindmeld with you so you can show me your masturbation routine, end of story.”

“Your loss,” he says, and rolls over in bed.

Church, given the victory, is speechless. Somehow, he hadn’t thought Tucker would just give up like that right away after Church told him no. It’s the decent thing to do, of course. Tucker’s an obnoxious horndog, but he’s decent. Church is oddly, incredibly disappointed by this.

This annoys him, and he’s never been one to stew in silence with his irritation.

“It’d be awful,” he goes on.

“Uh huh,” he says shortly, which doesn’t exactly invite further response, but Church has never needed an excuse to rant on length.

“Absolutely terrible,” he continues.

_“Dude--”_

“Can you even imagine it? Having someone in your head as you’re jerking off? You don’t ever think anything through.”

That stops Tucker short for a moment. “It’d be awful for _me,_ you mean?”

“Yes! Obviously!”

“Church, you dick! You don’t know that! Never knock something until you’ve tried it once. Like dudes. You might be surprised.”

“I don’t need a bi revelation man, I already had that in the Epsilon unit.”

“... What?”

“Two words: dude Tex.”

“Oh my _god.”_ The delight is practically radiating from his mind, shining on Church like the sun. He knows the images that’ll be blasted at him if he takes a single mental step closer to him, and it’s for this exact reason he almost shyly does so. Him and Dude Tex, making out. It’s insanely hot and a little bittersweetly nostalgic, and embarrassing as fuck that he’s indulging in viewing this-- wait.

There are other images, of him making out. With _Tucker._

He isn’t just delighted about the concept of Dude Tex, but of the reality of Bi Church. Because he _wants--_

“Yowch!” Tucker yelps, sitting up abruptly in his bed, hand flying to the back of his neck. “Watch the implant dude, you’re overheating!”

He hurriedly rushes to fix that little problem before he actually damages something, and then tries not to blow a circuit as the new… knowledge sinks in. The realization.

Tucker is at least a little bit attracted to almost everyone, so this wouldn’t have been such a shock if he was literally anyone else. But he isn’t. He’s Leonard Church, Epsilon, an AI. He may have memories that say otherwise, but he’s been nothing but code his entire life. And why, exactly, would the most sex obsessed man on the planet have a crush on the _one person_ he can’t actually fuck?

It’s almost like he likes him for his personality, or something.

Holy _fuck,_ Tucker’s got shit taste in men.

“Church?” he asks. “You good?”

He really does mean for the next thing he says to be some sort of insult, because really, he’s got a thing for _Church?_ Sure, he’s a genius, but _still._ He’s having a hard time getting past his incredulity. But instead what he says is, “Okay.”

“... Okay? As in, you’re okay?”

“Okay as in let’s do it, dumbass.”

He thinks agreeing to watch someone masturbate shouldn’t be anyone’s immediate reaction to realizing that that person like-likes them, but fuck it. This is Lavernius Tucker, so everything’s going to devolve to sex with him somehow eventually anyways. He’s going to have to see if this will work before he-- suggests any arrangements. Holy shit, he’s actually seriously considering a relationship and not just a one off thing, he realizes. How would that even work, between them?

He supposes that’s for future him to figure out, if this weird mindmeld jerk off sesh works out. (AI don’t get touch starved, he isn’t doing this for the opportunity to _feel--)_

Tucker’s stunned for a moment, and then excitement and some nervousness takes over.

“Hell yeah! I mean.” He coughs awkwardly, caught being too enthusiastic for his taste, apparently. “Cool. Finally I can jerk off _properly.”_

He and Carolina really should have stressed to Tucker how transparent he’d be to see through for Church once he’d moved into his skull.

A lamp turns on in the darkness of the room, and Tucker’s already dug a bottle of lube out of his drawer while Church was busy feeling guilty about weird emotional invasions of privacy. He kicks his covers off and props himself up on pillows so he’s comfortably lounging, looking down at his naked body. Tucker sleeps naked every night, insists he can’t if he puts something on, but he usually at least avoids looking down at himself while Church is in his head. Not now. His eyes linger and wander, like he’s checking out another person and liking what he sees. He really has gotten into shape…

Church feels like he should have some physical reaction to this, but of course that’s not an option. Feeling self conscious and awkward, he speaks up. “Dude, are you ogling _yourself?”_

“Well, I’m not saying if I had a clone I’d fuck me, but--”

“--you totally would.”

“Okay, yeah. But this is for your benefit too! Liking what you’re seeing?” There’s a flirtatious playfulness to his words, but he thinks he can hear something hungry for approval as well, underneath.

Church is bad at compliments, but one is clearly in order here. “...Touch yourself.”

That’s a compliment, right? From the way Tucker’s breath catches a little at that, he thinks so.

Tucker’s hand lands on his chest instead of anywhere lower South, because he’s a contrarian fuckhole who would rather die than follow his orders, Church can only surmise. No matter. Bitching later (and that’s something he rarely doesn’t just fall into instant gratification with), for now, he has to get this mindmeld going already if he wants to seriously get anything out of this.

It’s a bit like… Jumping off a cliff into the sea and sinking far down into the water with his momentum, except he doesn’t kick out with his legs (that he doesn’t have) to stop himself and go back up for air, the water’s resistance doesn’t eventually slow him down to a standstill before the air in his lungs (none) lifts him back up to the surface. He sinks and sinks without stopping, without slowing, like he’s got weights on his ankles and the sea is bottomless.

Here’s where the metaphor ends, because it doesn’t get colder and darker the further down he goes. It gets warmer… and warmer… god, it’s almost kind of _hot,_ in an itchy, restless sort of way that makes him want to squirm. And things start to feel weird and sharp, vivid instead of vague and abstract.

He’s actually _feeling things,_ he realizes. Physical things. He can feel the heat in the pit of his (Tucker’s) belly, the way his blood rushes too fast in a way that makes him feel a little giddy and breathless and excited and dumb, the soft yielding of the bed underneath, his hand trailing up from his chest to his throat without his sayso, caressing and slow and sensual. (He viciously clamps down on the urge to shudder and cry at the sensation of someone touching him because Tucker would notice and _AI can’t be touch starved that’s dumb.)_

“What… are you doing,” he says, and it’s with a mouth, it’s sound not thought, an actual voice _(Tucker’s_ voice) ringing out breathlessly in the room.

Tucker huffs a soft, amazed laugh at that. “Dragging things out,” he eventually answers, fingers warmly dragging over the thin skin of his throat as he goes further up, the exact opposite direction he’s supposed to be going. Does he think he has a dick on his forehead or something? (Was this how Sigma felt, as he slowly took over Agent Maine?)

Tucker’s hand cups his face, and his thumb traces his lips. They tingle, far more sensitive than they have any right to be. Hormones. Chemical reactions. Having nothing real to compare it to. Whatever it is, it makes Church _shiver_ (actually shiver, with a body), and he feels Tucker’s blossoming wonder in response.

“Yeah,” he breathes out against his fingers. “I can feel you now.”

Oh no. Church is transparent now as well, and he’s rapidly becoming too horny to really care. Horny. He missed horny, the memory of horny, the not-his memory of him staring for too long at Tex or Donut or Tucker and getting lost in it.

Church absolutely wants to get lost.

Tucker tilts his head back into the pillow as if in ecstasy, eyes closed, as he gives the palm of his hand one long, filthy, warm, wet lick of his tongue, all the way up to the tip of his finger. Tucker’s mouth groans, but it isn’t Tucker making noise.

“I told you this’d be hot,” Tucker says, and his voice is genuinely husky in a way that reveals all of his jokey sex-voice imitations as the fraudulent lies they were, because fuck this is actually _hot,_ he’s actually _loving this._

Tucker’s breath stutters. Right, transparent. No time to panic and rant, too much heat and skin and beautiful tactile feeling.

“Go _lower_ already,” he urges Tucker through his voice, and he entirely faults his vocal chords on how whiny and pleading he ends up sounding.

Tucker bites the bottom of his lip, and it’s amazing.

“That’s kinda fast…” he says dubiously, vague flashes and images going through his mind of playing with himself for hours, for far too long. It’s both a horrible and wonderful possibility to consider allowing to happen, but he can’t handle that much right now. Tucker hasn’t even touched his dick yet and he already feels like he’s going to explode into a thousand fragments. Later. More in depth touching _later._ (He’s too beside himself to dwell on how he’s already decided on there being a later, nothing but the now matters right now.)

_“Please.”_

Church can’t recall a single time he’s said ‘please’ to Tucker, and neither can he. Church watches/feels Tucker get hit by a sudden wave of overwhelming of arousal at that, and he can’t help but be pulled in along with it as well, a sympathetic reaction, a feedback loop. The endlessly sinking swimmer caught in an invisible, powerful current. Horniness begets horniness.

“I’ll speed things along,” he says in a dry rasp, as if Church can’t feel him _dying_ to touch his dick at Church’s begging.

And then he starts sucking on two of his fingers like they’re a dick, and his other hand brushes his nipple. This is _not_ dick-touching, but he’s too overwhelmed to find the words to complain.

He has partial control of this body. He could, perhaps, reach out and move something if he wanted to, the way Tucker’s lips move readily for him. He could make that hand reach for Tucker’s dick. But if Tucker fought him for control, he’d win. Church is too shaky and new and not settled. Tucker knows this body better than he does. And besides-- besides… Even if he is desperate to move things along, he also doesn’t want to take control. He wants to be wrecked, now that he can finally be wrecked. He wants to _be touched_ more than he wants to touch, and it’s happening.

So instead he lies back and takes it, feels without fighting, moans around the fingers in his mouth without biting. Finally, Tucker draws the fingers out of his mouth and Church groans, “All nipples _can’t_ be that fucking sensitive.”

“I see it as a plus,” Tucker pants right on the heels of his words, like one long, strange conversation with himself. “Like being able to tie a cherry stem with your tongue.”

Church has been incapable of seeing that move as hot after seeing Kai go through three boxes of canned cherries teaching it to Tucker in _the common room_ like a couple of animals that were way too frank discussing pick up strategies with each other. Those two were sharks, perfect for each other and simultaneously a little too similar.

And then his right hand, slick with spit, finally, _finally_ goes down to his dick. The broken moan that’s torn out of them is both of theirs. He can feel skin rubbing against skin in perfect detail, air sucked into his lungs like he’s just survived a near suffocation, fabric rubbing up against his back, the delicious friction as Tucker swipes his thumb over the the head of his prick in synch with his other hand that’s still teasing one nipple.

Church licks his lips without even thinking about it, and Tucker ups his pace in response. In reward?

“For fuck’s-- sake,” he pants brokenly, and he lifts Tucker’s left hand away from his chest to run it through his long hair, to tug helplessly at the locks. He likes the pull against his scalp, and Tucker squeezes down on his dick in time and Church groans. Definitely reward. Reward for participation.

He wants to be wrecked, but he can contribute too.

“Tucker,” he sighs, and the hand he’s taking control over, been given control over, drifts slowly down over Tucker’s body. It’s sculpted and sweaty and hot, and he likes the way the muscle jumps underneath his touch before Tucker pushes up into it desperately.

“Fuck, baby,” Tucker replies, sexy nonsense said in an enthusiastically impressed tone, like Church is pleasing him, doing good. “Don’t stop.”

He doesn’t stop, and neither does Tucker. He pumps in a steady, merciless beat that drains all of Church’s significant brainpower, and the hand he’s taken over drifts down to join it, hand over hand, pumping in time together. He could give it back to Tucker and let him use both, it’d probably be easier, but-- he likes this better. Like there’s two bodies in this bed, almost. Like the real sex that never happened that he remembers, two people touching each other.

“You’re doing so good, babe,” Tucker says, voice wrecked, and that’s not even vaguely platonic, this doesn’t feel casual at all, but. He doesn’t mind that at all, not a single iota in this moment. And he doesn’t feel like that’ll change much in the future once the haze of lust lifts either. Maybe he’ll be a little flustered, defensive. Whatever. That doesn’t matter, and it won’t stop him.

“I-- I really fucking love you, dude,” he says through Tucker’s mouth, committing himself before he can second guess himself once this moment of absolute confidence has passed.

It’s hearing those words in Tucker’s voice that does it for him more than anything else, somehow, and they come together. It’s like everything happens at once, so many different physical reactions coming uncontrollably together at once. Shaking, tensing, release, a euphoric dazed lightness to his thoughts. Like finally breaking the surface and gulping down that overwhelmingly wonderful first breath of air. Heaven, for one long moment. He wonders if Tucker had been ready to come to.

“Definitely,” Tucker says, radiating the simple joy of a good afterglow, “one of my kinks.”

They’re winded so thoroughly together at this point that they don’t even notice that Tucker hadn’t needed to speak with his mouth.


End file.
